Alicia: Please introduce yourself and the part you play in Motion City Soundtrack Tony: I’m Tony Thaxton and I play drums

A: How has Warped tour been so far? T: It’s been good. It’s been obviously very hot, most of these days. It’s been a good time; the crowds are always very good to us on Warped tour.

A: Do you have any plans after Warped tour? T: We have a bunch of just kind of random one offs for the rest of the summer. At the end of the summer we go over to the UK, we’re doing the Reeding and Leeds festivals over there. And then, some other things are sort of just up in the air and then there’s gonna be a big tour in the fall that I can’t totally talk about just yet

A: What is the best part of Warped tour in your opinion? T: The show, like the actual time we that get to play, that’s a good time. I also just enjoy honestly when the day is done and the sun has gone down and it’s much cooler outside and there’s usually a barbecue every night and everybody just hangs out and it’s just relaxed it’s not so loud any more. It’s just a nice way to end the day.

A: What would you say is the worst part? T: Probably the heat and the uh shower situation can be a little difficult. Cause a lot of times there’s only one shower per, ya know one shower for guys one shower for girls and there’s hundreds of people out here so it gets a little difficult.

A: Where did the inspiration for “My Dinosaur Life” come from? T: It’s hard to really say. I mean we just sort of, anything that you listen to you kind of get inspired by the bands you like and we all each have our own tastes. There’s some things we do like together.I don’t know, we just kinda don’t set any goal, like oh we need to write a song like this, we need to do this. We just kinda start writing and see where it goes. We wrote a lot of songs, and twelve made the record but uh I don’t know we just kinda do it. There’s no like big thing over all. We just try to make music we like and hope other people will too.

A: Was there any pressure to produce a certain type of album when it came to “My Dinosaur Life”? T: No, not really. It’s always ya know exciting but maybe a little bit intimidating doing a new record cause we’ve done okay in the past and you always hope that people will like this again. But it was, I don’t know, I feel like it’s more of an exciting time than feeling the pressure.

A: You recently did a song for the Alice in Wonderland soundtrack, how did that opportunity come to present itself? T: We were just asked by the label that put it out.We were approached about doing a song for it and we had the time in our schedule to make it happen and it seemed like a good opportunity. We literally spent one day, we were supposed to do it, we already booked studio time and the day before we recorded it we wrote the song and the next day recorded it.We never had quite worked like that before; we kinda like made our selves work under pressure. I like the song; I think it turned out good.

A: What was your first job? T: My first job was at an amusement park, I worked in a restaurant at this park back in Richmond, Virginia called King’s Dominion.

A: I think I’ve heard of that beforeT: Actually our bass player Matt also worked there. Like he worked there the next summer though but we both worked at the same place.

A: And your worst job? T: Probably the same answer. Not a big fan of- I hope I never have to work in the food industry again.

A: What do you do between shows to keep you entertained? T: Honestly a lot of internet, TV.We go through a lot of seasons of TV shows on DVD or online. A lot of that. Nothing too mind-blowingly exciting, but that’s the truth.

A: Do you have any unique talents that someone would not know just by looking at you? T: Uhh I don’t think so…I kinda feel like that’s why I’m thankful I get to do this for a living cause drums are kinda the main thing I’ve ever felt like I was at least okay at doing, so I’ll keep it at that.

A: If you were abandoned on Mars with a ukulele and a toaster, which would you use to defend yourself in case of alien crusaders? Why? T: I think I’m gonna go with the ukulele because there’s a story.When I was, I was too young to really remember this but apparently when I was quite young I uh nail my sister on the head with a ukulele and she still brings it up quite often to this day.

A: So you have practice. T: Yeah, I have a history with the ukulele as a weapon.

A: Any parting words/pearls of wisdom you wish to share? T: About music or just in general?

A: Whatever you want T: I’ll go with the music side of just, if you want to try and do this work hard.Don’t expect things to be handed to you. It’s not for everyone, some people think it is and they get out there on the road and realize they can’t handle being on tour. It’s awesome, I’m not complaining about it, but it’s not the easiest thing for everyone so. I don’t know, that’s about all I got.